Plea to move quicker on revitalising Rugby town centre

The councillor that chairs a group leading plans to revitalise Rugby town centre has urged his colleagues to get on with it.

Councillor Jerry Roodhouse (Paddox), leader of the Liberal Democrat group and a former mayor of the town, made the plea during a discussion of Rugby Borough Council’s town centre regeneration plan at this week’s meeting of full council.

The authority put in place a strategy in December 2022 with the council acknowledging the town centre "is no longer fit for purpose".

Cllr Roodhouse leads a six-strong, cross-party panel of councillors, including leader Councillor Derek Poole (Con, Wolston & the Lawfords) and his deputy Councillor Ian Picker (Con, Hillmorton), to push forward the work.

They have set out 19 work streams, including focus on improving the appearance and experiences of the town centre, creating new uses for spaces, promoting new and start-up businesses, backing existing traders and improving community safety, active travel and public transport.

Cllr Roodhouse said: “We want this to succeed, it has to succeed and sitting behind that is the pace that we work at.

“My plea to both sides of the chamber is that I want to speed this up, I mentioned this to the officers yesterday (Tuesday) and that we have to make time to do this.

“We want to take the town centre forward, we want to do that regeneration, we have to grasp the nettle. We cannot wait for government changes, we have to grasp it and go with it and that means actually carving out time.

“I know that is difficult. It is a bit easier for me now I am retired but if we are serious about the town centre and its regeneration, we have a golden opportunity over the next few years to perhaps start doing that and bringing it forward.

“I will do whatever I can but it is the pace that we now need to work at. Meetings are going to be taking place every month on this, if we move quickly it could be half-monthly if we are making decisions to move projects forward, the officers are going to need decisions to be made.”

Cllr Poole stepped in to thank Cllr Roodhouse for his “exceptional” leadership with Cllr Picker pleased to see collaborative work.

“This is another example of working well together across the council,” he said.

“There is a tremendous amount of ambition and ability. A lot of the initial work referred to in the report, setting up the workstreams, that is laying down foundations to build on.

“There are some tremendous opportunities, we have some things that I hope we will be able to take forward at a very rapid pace and we just need to get this right and do it.

“I will continue to do all I can to deliver this alongside other members of the group, and indeed all councillors and officers.”

During her first speech when she was elected as Rugby Mayor in May, Cllr Maggie O’Rourke said revitalising the town centre was top of her agenda.